The Story of Us
by Sareki02
Summary: P/T, Tom and B'Elanna tell 20 year old Miral the story of how they fell in love. Rated PG-13.


**Author's Notes**: Many thanks to Delwin for betaing and to Izzy and my husband for their input. Also thanks to Photogirl1890 for catching typos. Also, I'm not accepting Pathways as canon for this story. This story was originally published on AO3 on August 10, 2014.

**The Story of Us**

_Date: Friday, January 16, 2398_

_Location: Paris-Torres Home_

"So, today when I was at lunch with Uncle Harry, he told me I should ask you how you got together. He said it was an interesting story."

B'Elanna looked up at her daughter as they cleared the table. They had just finished dinner together, one of the few the three of them had shared since Miral left for school the year before. Tom, placing a stack of dishes in the replicator, let out a chuckle. "Oh, Miral, it isn't that interesting. Just your normal 'boy meets girl, girl hates boy for three years and then confesses her love for him' story."

"I didn't hate you," B'Elanna said, smiling at her husband of twenty years.

"B'Elanna, you called me a pig, in front of everyone, including the captain!"

"You deserved it! That pool shark guy..." B'Elanna trailed off, shaking her head as she wiped off the kitchen table.

Miral laughed as her parents traded barbs. "Come on, tell me! You guys never really talk about Voyager, unless it is a story about how Uncle Harry did something stupid."

"Which reminds me," Tom began. "Did I ever tell you about the time that Harry-"

"Probably," Miral interrupted. "But I don't want to hear that story. Tell me about how you guys met."

"We were introduced in a senior staff meeting, a week after Voyager was lost, after I was made chief engineer."

Tom looked at his wife. "Wait, didn't I rescue you and Harry on Ocampa? I seem to remember pulling you out of a hole and then diving back into it to get Chakotay."

"I was sick. I don't really remember. But I doubt at the time we stopped and shook hands."

"B'Elanna, you were nothing but polite to me back then. I'm sure when I pulled you out you said, 'Thank you kind sir. May I introduce myself?' before retching."

"I did not throw up."

"You did. I remember that."

B'Elanna shook her head. "Well, Miral, that is evidently how we met."

Miral cast a look at her parents. "You know I meant how did you guys start dating."

Having moved into the living room after clearing the table, Tom and B'Elanna sat on one couch, their daughter on the loveseat. Tom wrapped his arm around B'Elanna but kept his eyes on Miral. "Honey, we can tell you the story, but it was a long time ago and we were different people then. I mean, we were only a couple years older than you are now when we were thrown into the Delta Quadrant. So… just remember that. And don't judge us. Well, where should we start?" he said turning to B'Elanna. "The Vidiians?"

"I think I need a drink for this. Do you two want anything?"

"No thanks," Miral responded as Tom answered, "A beer."

As B'Elanna went to get the drinks, Tom began the story. "As you know, in 2371 your mom was a member of the Maquis, on a ship called the Val Jean, and I was a parolee who was on board Voyager to try to track that ship through the Badlands in exchange for a reduced sentence. Then the best thing that ever happened to us occurred: we were thrown 70,000 light years away from home. We were both made lieutenants and became senior officers on the ship, me at conn, your mom the chief engineer. But I wasn't happy at the time. You see, since I had betrayed both Starfleet and the Maquis, really only your Uncle Harry would even talk to me for the first month or two. Your mom had made it plain what she thought of me, so I tried to stay out of her way. I always respected her, of course, because she is a damn fine engineer. She and Harry were friends, so the three of us hung out sometimes, and I liked her, I thought she was interesting. But it was clear that I bothered her.

"But then the Vidiian incident happened. Maybe five or six months after we were lost, your mother and I, and another officer, Pete Durst, were off doing something-"

"We were inspecting magnesite formations."

Tom looked at B'Elanna. "How do you remember that? It was almost 30 years ago."

"I remember because we were just starting to process our own alloys, as part of the shuttle maintenance and building project. That was why we needed the magnesite, so I remember after all of what happened, I still needed the stupid maginiste, and we had lost another shuttle."

"Oh, well, anyway, we were captured by the Vidiians. They stunned us, and when I came to, it was just Pete and me. B'Elanna was gone. Another prisoner told me they had probably taken her to organ processing, that she was dead. They soon took us out to the mines, and it was back breaking labor. When they finally herded us back to the barracks, I was so exhausted that I actually fell asleep.

"In the middle of the night, your mom woke me up. Only it wasn't your mom. She… she was just the human side of B'Elanna. I don't really know how, but the Vidiians figured out that Klingons were immune to the phage. So they wanted a pure specimen to attempt to figure out what it was about Klingons that made them immune. And since your mom was the only person with Klingon DNA that they knew of, they separated her into two beings, one who was fully Klingon and one who was fully human. Since they had no use for 'human' B'Elanna, they decided that she could mine ore with the rest of us."

B'Elanna cut in. "I was pretty sick, from what they had done to me, so I didn't last long in the mines. At one point I was in the barracks alone and the guards left so I tried to break into the computer system, but they returned before I was successful. They were dragging me off to organ processing when… she attacked them. My Klingon half."

"Wait," Miral interrupted. "You're telling this story like you are… I don't know what to call it… your human self?"

"I think of it as human B'Elanna and Klingon B'Elanna if that helps you," Tom offered.

"Ok, mom, do you have your Klingon memories?"

"No, I'll explain when we get there. But everything I remember is from my human self. She, Klingon me, and I made a plan, to go back to the lab where she was held and access the computer in there, to try to drop the shield around the installation so that Voyager could beam us up.."

Tom cut in, "Meanwhile, I had been brought back to the barracks, and B'Elanna was gone. This time I was sure that they had taken her to organ processing. I was about to try to get there, to rescue her, when Chakotay showed up disguised as a Vidiian. He took me out of the barracks and on our way to organ processing, we heard a commotion. We ran into a lab, to find human and Klingon B'Elanna standing there, and a Vidiian wearing Pete Durst's face."

"His face? What…?" Miral looked aghast as she struggled to find the proper words.

"Yeah, his face. They had taken him to organ processing earlier," Tom said, looking away from his daughter. Miral's reaction brought back the memory of his own reaction, when he saw that monster wearing Pete's face. A reaction he had buried for years, as the casual brutality of the Delta Quadrant slowly jaded him. He cleared his throat and started the story again, not wanting to dwell on Pete. "This was also the first time I learned about Klingon B'Elanna. I didn't know until we got back to the ship why any of this had happened. So I was pretty stunned to run into a room and find this group of people. Anyway, right before we got out of there, Klingon B'Elanna got shot. Chakotay called for the beam out, and there we were, on the transporter pad, back on Voyager. I remember kneeling down next to your mom, moms I guess is more accurate, as human B'Elanna held Klingon B'Elanna as she died.

"I… I didn't know what to do. They were beamed to sickbay and after reporting to the captain, I went there myself. B'Elanna, still human, was lying on the biobed. She told me that her body couldn't synthesize proteins without her Klingon DNA, so the Doctor needed put her back the way she was. And I was so happy to hear this. Human B'Elanna was not your mom. First off, your mom was never so… weepy."

B'Elanna laughed. "I did cry a lot, didn't I?"

"I don't know how else to explain it, other than it wasn't you. And I knew I liked you a lot better than her," Tom said, still looking at B'Elanna.

"Anyway," B'Elanna said, clearing her throat to continue the story. "It took days to re-integrate my Klingon DNA. Since she was already dead, this is why I don't remember her experiences. During this time, I spent most of that time in my quarters, feeling sicker than I have ever felt before or since. Tom would stop by after his shift, to make sure I was still doing okay. I don't remember, is this the Great Gatsby time?"

Tom smiled, "I think it is! You were so bored, but too nauseous to do anything, so I think the second time I dropped by I brought you the book, but there was a problem with your eyes and it would give you a headache to look at the text. So I started reading it to you."

"I thought you were crazy, sitting there, reading a grown woman a book, especially when I could have just had the computer do it."

"I've always been crazy for you," he teased back, kissing her on the cheek.

"Anyway," B'Elanna said, giving Tom a playful shove, "this is when we became friends. After everything we had been through on that… mission, something just kind of… I don't know."

Tom took over for his wife, "I think there was a connection between us after that. One that I don't think we understood for a long time. I just knew your mom was… special. I wasn't interested in her romantically at this point, that wasn't until after the Jonas thing, right?"

B'Elanna nodded in agreement. "The first time you asked me out was right after the incident with the Akritirians. That was about three years after we were stranded?"

"So is that when you started dating?" Miral asked.

Laughed erupted from the other couch. "Oh, Miral, your mother turned me down flat!"

"What? Why, mom?"

B'Elanna took a long sip of her beer before answering. "Because things were complicated on Voyager. I liked your father, as a friend by that point. And I respected him as a fellow officer. Over the last year he had saved me, saved us all multiple times. For instance, about six months after… the Vidiian incident, we found this… robot… floating in space. We brought it aboard and I became obsessed with fixing it. Well, when I finally got the stupid thing working, it kidnapped me and got me involved in some kind of crazy robot war.

"Voyager was having issues, the warp drive was down so they couldn't come after me. However, according to Harry, your dad was all ready to just hop in a shuttle and rescue me! He said something like, 'I don't need help. Just give me a shuttle, I'll get her out of there.' I guess he was trying to be my knight in shining armor."

"Hey, I was your knight in shining armor!" Tom injected. "I flew between two ships who were firing on each other to beam you out. So what if I wasn't technically wearing any armor and my steed was a shuttlecraft."

"My hero," B'Elanna replied drying before continuing. "So we had become pretty close, but suddenly Tom started acting like a jerk. I think it was right around the time that Suder… well, in any case, your father started acting out, and was really having a hard time getting along with Chakotay. I remember, we were in engineering, your dad and I. It was… it was when Dreadnought showed up."

"I'd forgotten about Dreadnought," Tom said.

"I never will… Back before we got lost in the Delta Quadrant, I had reprogrammed a Cardassian missile that they had sent against the Maquis. I sent it to destroy a Cardassian target, the… fuel depot on Aschelan V, if I remember correctly. Only it disappeared in the Badlands, just to show up two years later to haunt me again.

"In any case, we were in engineering, and your dad was almost being himself again. We were messing with the navigational sensors or something, trying to figure out a way to detect Dreadnought. I was worked up about the whole thing, and there was Tom, telling me that it was a different time, that it was okay. Then I asked him why he had been acting like such a jerk lately."

"I remember that conversation, but I didn't remember what we were doing in Engineering. We had so many conversations in Engineering… especially during this time, when I was making excuses to be close to you."

"Yes, you hand delivered any and everything you could think of, no matter how ridiculous it was that you weren't sending it through the messaging system…"

"Yes, well, you never seemed to complain. But back to the story, the 'me acting out' thing was only a ruse," Tom said. "Captain Janeway and Tuvok had discovered there was a spy on board, who was feeding information to Seska. We've told you about Seska?"

Miral nodded.

"They asked me to act like a malcontent in the hopes that I could ferret out the spy. It worked, but man, made a lot of people upset in the process. Including your mom."

"I wasn't mad for too long," B'Elanna said, rolling her eyes.

"You were mad at me for like two months!" Tom countered. "But I think we missed a story."

"Oh," B'Elanna replied. "Which one?"

"Lizard babies."

"Oh, god. Do you really want to tell her about that?"

Miral's interest was definitely peaked at her mother's attempt to dissuade her father from telling the story.

"I think she is old enough to hear it. So, Miral, this is the story of how I turned into a lizard. You know that I am the first person to break the warp 10 barrier. We had found a new form of dilithium that would remain stable at higher warp frequencies. So Harry, B'Elanna, and I thought maybe it would allow us to reach warp 10, infinite velocity. Theoretically that would mean we were any and everywhere in the universe, and thus would allow us to get home. So we worked on this together for around a month before we finally had a breakthrough. We altered a shuttle and the test flight was successful, we had reached warp 10. After everything had calmed down, B'Elanna and I were in the mess hall, when I passed out-"

"That is not what happened."

Tom looked over at B'Elanna. "Well, then take over the story. I was dead or a lizard for most of it, so excuse me if I get the details wrong."

B'Elanna sighed, "Well, we were in the mess hall. Neelix had brought us over some coffee that he had named after you. Paris Delight? Paris Paradise? It was a ridiculous name, but the coffee actually didn't taste that bad. However, Tom was disgusted when he tasted it and started feeling sick. Then he collapsed on the floor. I contacted the transporter room to beam him to sickbay, but they couldn't lock on. So I had to call sickbay to send a stretcher. I remember kneeling on the floor, next to him, stroking his head, trying to get him to calm down."

"I remember that now," Tom said, staring off into the distance. Then he turned to look B'Elanna in the eye. "And again in sickbay, you were there, you kept touching me, trying to tell me it would be okay. I remember feeling better because you were there."

B'Elanna continued with the story, "It turned out that Tom was allergic to water; then he was no longer able to breathe oxygen. The Doctor was able to figure out something he was able to breathe but things just kept getting worse. Then, your father died."

As B'Elanna paused to take a sip from her drink Miral exclaimed, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Died?! You say that so casually!"

"Well people kind of died and came back to life a lot of Voyager. I think Harry died at least three times," Tom respond.

B'Elanna nodded in agreement, "At least three times… maybe more like seven? It seemed like once a year Harry would die. But anyway, your father was dead for, what, around eight hours? I remember hearing the news and it was like my world had crashed. I was in the shuttle bay, with Harry, we were going over every inch of the stupid thing, trying to figure out what had happened. That's when Chakotay came in and told us what had happened. He then left, and I remember being so mad, I threw my tricorder and it shattered against the bulkhead. Harry was sitting, silent, watching me. He just slowly stood and walked over to me, wrapping me in a hug. I don't know if it was for him or for me, but I felt my eyes start to water and I was embarrassed, so I tried to compose myself. When I pulled away from him, his eyes were watery too.

"I made a quick exit, heading to my quarters. I had been off duty when this whole thing had started and now that Tom was dead, there was no rush to figure out what went wrong. I felt drained, from lack of sleep and from the events of the day. I kicked off my boots and crawled onto the bed, and for the first time in a long time, cried.

"Later, I was woken up by a call from Chakotay, I think, telling me that Tom was alive… again. And that there was a staff meeting in fifteen minutes.

"I could not believe it. I went to the staff meeting in something of a daze. The doctor had a plan, he wanted to destroy Tom's new DNA using antiprotons from the warp core. So I had to set up some kind of device to deliver this treatment and I only had an hour to do it in.

"When they finally brought Tom to engineering, he looked really bad. I would have never recognized him. Just after we started the treatments, Tom broke out of his restraints. He captured the captain and launched the Cochrane, the shuttle we had modified to go warp 10.

"We found them three days later."

B'Elanna paused and looked at Tom. "You can tell her the rest. I'm getting another beer."

"Grab me one too," Tom watched his wife walk out of the room. "Miral, just to be clear, I actually don't remember much after I collapsed in the mess hall, and nothing between when I died and when the Doctor revived me after he had cured us.

"So, this is what I was told happened. Taking the captain past the warp 10 threshold turned the captain into a lizard as well. We landed on a planet, three days from Voyager's position. We… mated, and had three lizard babies before Voyager found us. They left the… offspring… behind, the Doctor cured us, and we continued on our way to the Alpha Quadrant."

"You're messing with me," Miral said.

B'Elanna had returned and handed Tom a beer. "He's not. That's what happened."

"Noooo," Miral said, in disbelief. "You're telling me that I have three lizard half siblings in the Delta Quadrant?"

"Yup," Tom replied.

"That's… crazy."

"This is why we don't tell that story," B'Elanna said, kicking off her shoes and curling up on the couch. "It's unbelievable and doesn't make any sense."

"Well, Miral, now you know." He then looked at B'Elanna. "What's next in the story of us? Giant mosquitoes?"

"Is that really what is next? When did that happen…?"

Tom absentmindedly swirled his beer. "Well, it was the Doc's first away mission, so that would be after we got the mobile emitter…. so late 72? Early 73?"

B'Elanna nodded. "Yes, that sounds right, but you asked me out before we got the emitter. We were in a shuttle and got attacked. You had to have brain surgery and the Doctor was decompiling."

"Brain surgery?" Miral interpreted. "You say that like it isn't a big deal."

"That's because your father smacking his head into something was a weekly occurrence." B'Elanna smiled and then turned to Tom. "But why did you decide to ask me out then? That day in the shuttle?"

Tom paused for a moment. "I don't know… I had been thinking about asking you for a while. I wanted to get to know you better, without Harry being around. When the three of us would make plans I would secretly hope that Harry would have to pull out at the last moment, because I liked it better when it was just you and me. There was… something about you…" Tom trailed off and took another drink from his beer. "Why did you turn me down?"

"Because I get seasick."

"What?" Miral interjected.

"I asked her to go sailing," Tom said to his daughter before turning to his wife. "That's not the real reason," he chided.

"No… I didn't want to date anyone, despite what you thought was going on between me and Bristow. It was a small ship, and there was no way to avoid someone you didn't want to see, once things went bad. I thought it was better not to get attached to people, so they couldn't hurt me. So that is why I said no."

"Then when did you say yes? And what changed your mind about having a relationship on Voyager?" Miral asked.

"I don't think your mom ever actually said 'yes'," Tom laughed. "I think at some point she just gave up on saying 'no'."

"You were nothing if not persistent."

Tom feigned a defensive look. "Hey, I gave it rest after you said no the first time, until the time with the giant mosquitoes."

Miral broke in, "You guys have told me about them before. You used to make jokes about them when I would get a bug bite when I was little."

Tom and B'Elanna looked at each other before he replied, "Yeah, we told you a pretty filtered version of that story. We didn't want to give you nightmares. Here's what I remember. Neelix and the captain had left the ship for some reason, and I volunteered to help out in the mess hall while Neelix was away. I was cooking a giant piece of meat when the heating array overloaded and the meat was incinerated. On top of that, the replicators crashed as well. So, as you can imagine, I had a very unhappy group of hungry people on my hands. So I called your mom. When she came to look at the problem we saw that one of the gel packs-

B'Elanna cut in, "Voyager had an experimental kind of circuitry that was comprised of bio-neural gel packs. They were incredibly quick and able to handle very chaotic parameter spaces, but they were susceptible to infections like living tissue-"

"Get the cheese to sickbay," Tom interrupted, attempting to impersonate B'Elanna.

"Quiet. Because of these issues with the gel packs, Starfleet stopped using them shortly after Voyager was lost. However, we were stuck with them."

"May I continue the story now?" Tom asked.

"Go right ahead."

"Anyway, the gel pack burst and got this goo all over your mom's hand. It turned out that earlier that day, the Doctor had gone down to this colony that had been infected by a virus. When he beamed back up, some of the viruses were beamed as well, and they migrated from the biofilter before it could be purged. So, when that gel pack burst, everyone in the mess hall was infected by the virus. And your mom was patient zero.

"We were quarantined in there, for what, several hours before the Doc came up with a cure? Your mom was feeling pretty sick but was still talking to me until, well, a bunch of macroviruses, little bugs, flew out of her neck."

"What?" Miral said, aghast.

"Yeah, it was pretty gross."

"I was sick. I couldn't control it. And I bet they flew out of your neck too," B'Elanna said in an attempt to defend herself.

"We have no proof of that. And you've done other gross things when you were sick. Remember the time you ate Neelix's Five Spice Casserole of Wonders?"

B'Elanna glared at him. "Continue with the story, Paris."

"Anyway, so these little bugs flew out of her neck, and she passed out shortly thereafter. I was having a hard time staying awake when the Doctor finally came into the mess hall with the cure. Unfortunately, the little bugs… they were no longer so little anymore. Now the viruses were about a meter in diameter, and they attacked the doctor when he tried to administer the treatment to B'Elanna. He had to leave before he could cure her.

"After I saw him leave, trailed by the large viruses, I crawled over to where he had dropped the hyposprays next to B'Elanna. I didn't know what was in them, or what dosage to give, so I didn't try to administer the treatment myself. The one thing I did know was we shouldn't be out in the open when the viruses came back. I tried to wake your mom up, but she was out cold.

"I grabbed a phaser from where they were kept in the galley, and then I picked up B'Elanna and carried her into the pantry. I laid her down as well as I could, and started to get back up to help the others who were in the mess hall. But the world started spinning and I fell to the floor. The last thing I remember is pulling B'Elanna close to me as I slipped into unconsciousness."

"And that is how we woke up, several hours later. The captain and the Doctor had released and airborne version of the antigen throughout the ship, which killed all the viruses." B'Elanna said.

"Yeah, only your mom was quite surprised to wake up in my arms, in the pitch black pantry. In fact, I seem to remember you elbowing me in the gut." Tom smiled as he looked over at B'Elanna.

"Well, I didn't know it was you. I had no idea what was going on. It was purely instinctive. And I did apologize."

"It still hurt."

B'Elanna sighed, "It was twenty five years ago, get over it."

Tom laughed at her response. "I love you too. Alright, what's next… At this point I was head over heels for your mom, but she was still not giving me the time of day. Well, that's not exactly true. We were together all the time. She made it clear to me that she was not interested. Then Vorik -

"Asked me out on a date," B'Elanna interrupted as she pinched Tom.

"What?!" Miral exclaimed, looking at her mom. "You dated Vorik?"

"No, not really. We went as a group to one of Neelix's luaus and he had reserved a table for just the two of us, me and him. Thankfully, Tom came and rescued me after an hour or so. I'd say if I was on a date with anyone that night it was your dad." Turning to Tom she said, "Remember after you rescued me?"

"I do," Tom recalled. "I came over to your mother's table and said something like, 'I'm sorry to interrupt, but I need to steal B'Elanna for a minute.' B'Elanna nearly sprung out of her seat and started doing that thing where she babbles, when she's nervous and put on the spot. But she got away from Vorik as quickly as possible. Your mom wanted to leave, because Vorik kept staring at her, at us. But I desperately wanted to spend the evening with her, so I said I knew a secluded place where we could sit and talk. Much to my surprise your mom agreed. We went to this secluded beach that was set apart from the area where the luau was taking place. We spent hours on that beach. I started falling in love with B'Elanna that night."

"You know, you're pretty sweet for an ex-flyboy," B'Elanna said, leaning against her husband. Sitting up straight again, B'Elanna said, "I feel like having a little dessert. Tom, want to come help me with that?"

Tom's eyebrows furrowed as he looked at his wife, knowing she was trying to get him alone for some reason. "Sure...," he responded.

"I have to use the bathroom anyway." Miral stood and headed down the hall.

Tom and B'Elanna went in to the kitchen and as soon as Miral was out of earshot, B'Elanna whispered, "We need to get our story straight."

"What do you mean?"

B'Elanna sighed, punching an order into the replicator. "I know she wants to know everything, and I know she is old enough to hear it, but I don't want to tell her everything."

Tom had noted that when telling the story of the Vidiians, B'Elanna had left their conversation about her past, her amazement at being fully human. After the turmoil surrounding the time when they had discovered that B'Elanna was pregnant, they made an agreement. They would never tell Miral about that day, the day that B'Elanna tried to alter their baby. And they would try to never let Miral think that being Klingon was a bad thing. It appeared as if B'Elanna was filtering the story with that agreement still in mind. Thinking this was what she was referring to, Tom said, "B'Elanna, we agreed a long time ago to not tell her about… the day after we found out you were pregnant."

B'Elanna shook her head. "It's not just that. Or the Klingon stuff. I… I'm not comfortable telling her about the Pon Farr. That is why I interrupted you."

Tom thought back to that day in the caves, B'Elanna's body pressed against his as she said, I've wanted this for so long. Just let it happen. And the kiss that followed. Their first kiss, which took place in a dark cave, thousands of light years away. Tom cleared his throat and asked, "Why don't you want to tell her?"

"Because, it's… we've never told anyone what happened in those caves. Even Chakotay, Tuvok, and Vorik, who were there for the end, don't know what we did… what we said. And I'm not comfortable telling her the details of our sex life, how our first time together was almost in a glade, with Tuvok and Chakotay within earshot, because I was going to die if we didn't have sex. She doesn't need to hear that. I don't need to tell her that."

"Well, we can skip it, or say something like, you got sick and I helped you through it, and we grew really close after that."

"That sounds good," B'Elanna responded, grabbing the plate of cookies she had replicated and they walked back into the living room. Miral was already back, settled on the couch, checking messages on her PADD.

"Anything interesting?" Tom asked as he grabbed a cookie and sat, pulling B'Elanna close to him.

"Some friends are going out tomorrow night," Miral replied, setting the PADD down. "But right now I want to hear more of the story."

"Well, I guess the next thing is that your mom went through a period where she was sickbay's most frequent patient. Within the span of a couple weeks, she got attacked by the Doctor after he messed with his program and became evil, shot by Chakotay when he was possessed by some former Borg, almost died when a plasma relay blew out, and… got infected with the illness that gave her a high fever she could have died from."

"When I had the fever," B'Elanna said, taking over from Tom, "we were stuck in these caves on a planet. I was really sick and we had no way to get back to the ship other than to try to find a way out the caves. Tom… he never gave up on me. No matter how… difficult I was, he always had my best interests in mind. When it was all over, when we got back to the ship, I knew, if nothing else, that Tom might be the best friend I had ever had. The things he was willing to do for me on that planet… it's not every day you find someone who cares that much about you."

Tom hugged B'Elanna more tightly as she trailed off and took over the story. "The fever was the first thing in the series of events I listed. I was falling hard for your mom, and every time she would get hurt, I would get so worried."

"Tom would come to my quarters to make sure I was okay. We would spend the evenings together, he would replicate me dinner… saying that 'no one should have to spend the day in sickbay and THEN have to eat Neelix's cooking.' By the end of that month, we were spending all of our evenings together, sometimes in public, with Harry in the mess hall, sometimes just the two of us in one of our quarters."

When B'Elanna paused, Tom picked up the story, "Although at this point is wasn't clear to me what your mother wanted. One day she would be flirting with me, the next pushing me away."

"But I think this was when we started dating."

Tom looked questioningly at B'Elanna. "Really? I thought we started dating after the Day of Honor."

"No Tom, that is when we… well, started dating exclusively."

Tom shook his head, "What? You weren't seeing anyone else before that. What are you talking about?"

B'Elanna shifted so that she could face Tom. "Do you really think I was watching those holovids of old movies with you because I 'wanted to learn more about 20th century entertainment'? No, I was doing it because we would curl up on the couch together, and… well, why else would I have watched 'To Catch a Thief' twice in four months?"

"Because it's a fantastic movie?!" Miral laughed quietly as Tom closed his eyes and shook his head. "Wait, just… wait. That was dating?"

"Tom, are you dumb? Yes! Why else would… that... have happened?"

"I don't know… wait, why…" he trailed off, remembering his daughter was still in the room.

"We can talk about this later," B'Elanna said, putting an end to the topic.

"Well… I think that is when the thing with the habitats happened, right?" he said and B'Elanna nodded. "Things had been going okay until I pissed your mom off by forcing her to do a Klingon martial arts program."

"How did you force mom?" Miral asked.

"I lost a bet," B'Elanna grumbled.

"Yup. So she was mad at me and we had this huge blowout."

"Wait, Mom, you were that mad about a martial arts program?" Miral asked.

Tom and B'Elanna exchanged a look before B'Elanna spoke, "No, not, really. It wasn't really ever about the martial arts programs. Sometimes, when you're in a relationship, you have…" B'Elanna paused and searched for the right word.

"Proxy fights," Tom said.

"Yes, that is a good way to put it. Something simple, like leaving dirty dishes out, will be the catalyst for huge fight that is about something else entirely. In this case… I don't know. I think I was probably scared about my feelings. I knew we were getting together, so I was trying to scare him away, so it wouldn't happen."

Tom smiled. "But since I am a glutton for punishment, I stuck around. And somehow we worked through it."

"We did and I knew I was falling in love with Tom. I kept trying to work up the courage to say something, but… my fear of rejection, of him leaving me, kept getting in the way. So we kept on the way we were, sharing meals, having dates on the holodeck-"

"That I am only now learning were dates," Tom interrupted.

"Later, Tom. To continue, about a month before the Day of Honor, Tom and I were talking and somehow it came up. Tom had always been very interested in learning about Klingon culture and holidays, so we decided to make a holodeck program based on the rituals one is supposed to perform on the Day of Honor. However, when the day finally arrived, we were also going to try to open a transwarp conduit. But the whole thing didn't work and we had to dump the core, so I never got to finish the program we wrote."

Tom took up the story as B'Elanna reached for her drink. "B'Elanna and I were sent out in a shuttle to retrieve the core. She was already having a pretty bad day, when we saw these people trying to steal our warp core. Well, they shot at us or something and our shuttle was destroyed. So we were left in environmental suits floating in space.

"It was all okay for a while. We figured out how to send a mayday to Voyager, so all we had to do was float there and wait for them to come get us. But then our suits were damaged, leaving us with only thirty minutes of oxygen. And all we could do was reduce the flow of oxygen and hopeVoyager would make it in time.

"As we got closer and closer to running out of oxygen, our conversation turned from stupid banter to what we actually wanted to say to each other. When we were nearly out, when it became clear we were going to die out there, B'Elanna woke me up. I had been dreaming about her."

"You told me that you were glad the last thing you would see was me."

Tom smiled. "Yes, and I meant it. I was… comforted to have you with me at the end, although I wished it didn't mean your death as well. But you… you kept telling me you had something to say, but it looked like whatever it was scared you."

B'Elanna was looking into Tom's eyes, each remembering that moment. "It did, but I didn't want us die without telling you."

After a long pause Miral interjected, "What the heck did you tell him!?"

Tom and B'Elanna's focus on each other was broken at their daughter's words. "This is the first time your mom told me she loved me."

"When I told him, he looked so sad and didn't speak, so I yelled at him to say something. And he said, 'You picked a hell of a time to tell me.'"

Tom replied defensively, "We were floating in space, we were going to die, and you picked then to tell me." Tom paused as he remember that moment, his stomach lurching at her proclamation. How he had felt a wave of sadness overtake him as the life he hadn't let himself dream he would have flashed before his eyes. The one in which he and B'Elanna were in love, where they got married, they had children, they lived 'happily ever after.' And that life all started with this, her telling him that she loved him. He held B'Elanna tight, just as he had on that day, and said, "I thought the next couple minutes were all we would have together… and it made me so sad."

B'Elanna looked down. "I know. I felt the same way, angry we had wasted our time together."

Miral watched as her parents grew quiet, her father's arms wrapped around her mother. "Well, you obviously didn't die," Miral said after a moment.

Tom seemed to snap back to the present. "Yes, Voyager showed up just after that and beamed us on board. We both passed out and, when I woke up in sickbay, your mom was gone. She was already back in Engineering. I tried to talk to B'Elanna for three days, but it seemed like she was always in Engineering. It wasn't until the night of Tuvok's promotion party that I saw her again. And after the dinner was over, I cornered her outside the mess hall, saying that we had to talk."

"I could feel you staring at me all through Tuvok's promotion party-"

"Wait," Miral interrupted, "Uncle Harry always says that no one got promoted on Voyager. That's why he spent seven years as an ensign."

Tom and B'Elanna suddenly both looked uncomfortable and were both silent for a moment before B'Elanna simply said, "There were some promotions."

Tom cleared his throat and continued, "Anyway... I called out to your mom and she tried to leave. You looked so nervous."

"I'd been avoiding for you days because I didn't want to hear you say you weren't interested in a relationship with me. It would have been better to pretend it didn't happen then to face that.

"You started making excuses for me, saying that I probably didn't mean it. But I knew I had to tell you the truth, about being in love with you, even if I didn't expect you to reciprocate. Then you told me to shut up, of all things, before kissing me. I thought to shove you away, I mean, there were around thiry people in the mess hall, any of which would walk out and see us..." B'Elanna's voice trailed off.

"Then the Doctor interrupted us to tell me I was going to be the new nurse. I'd never thought about it before, but it is almost like the second part of my life on Voyager started that day. I became the medical assistant and we became a couple," Tom mused.

"It was an eventful day."

"Once I got rid of the Doctor, I remember calling out to ask the computer where you were. I knew I had to tell you how I felt. When it said you were on deck nine, I nearly ran to your quarters. When I got to B'Elanna's quarters I told her how I loved her and wanted to be with her. And that is the day our family began, " Tom said and kissed B'Elanna on the cheek. Looking up at the clock, he continued, "So that is the story of how we fell in love. And since it's after midnight already, your poor old father needs his beauty sleep."

Miral giggled as B'Elanna shook her head as she stood, offering a hand to her husband.

"Do you want to stay the night?" Tom asked as he saw Miral grab her bag. "It's pretty late."

"No, I have some studying to do in the morning. It will be easier if I just go back to the dorm."

"Okay, but let us at least arrange a site to site," B'Elanna said, as Tom headed over the computer in the office.

"You really don't-"

But Miral was cut off by her mother's raised hand, as Tom put in the request. Minutes later Miral was beamed away.

Once in bed, Tom felt B'Elanna curl up at his side, rather than retreat to her side. "Did you really not know we were dating?" B'Elanna asked, laying a hand on his chest.

"I… was confused."

"Oh?"

Tom sighed, "Yes. You would curl up next to me and you seemed happy with that, but if we would kiss… well, the next day you would be prickly and avoid me for a while. Then the cycle would start over again. I knew we were no longer 'just friends' but it didn't seem like dating either. I had no idea what you wanted."

"I don't think I knew either."

"Well, I'm glad we eventually figured it out." Tom paused for a moment before wrapping his arms around B'Elanna. "Do you remember what happened when I got to your quarters that day, after the promotion party?"

"I remember you came in and said, 'B'Elanna, I love you too.' And then you started taking my clothes off."

Tom laughed. "Hey, if I remember correctly, you started taking my clothes off first..." He kissed her as he reached up under her shirt.

"And just what do you think you are doing Mr. Paris," B'Elanna asked once their kiss broke.

"Just thinking about that first time, with the love of my life. It may be giving me some ideas."

B'Elanna moaned softly as Tom's hands continued to explore, his kisses trailing down her neck. "Well, at least this time we know we will not be interpreted by the Doctor wanting to go on an away mission… that nearly got me killed."

"No red alerts, no screaming child," Tom said as he pulled off his shirt, then hers. "Nowhere we have to be early tomorrow. Just you and me."

"Lucky us," B'Elanna said and kissed her husband.

_Fin_


End file.
